Search

The extended mind view and the embodied-grounded view of cognition and language are typically considered as rather independent perspectives. In this paper we propose a possible integration of the two views and support it proposing the idea of “Words As social Tools” (WAT). In this respect, we will propose that words, also due to their social and public character, can be conceived as quasi-external devices that extend our cognition. Moreover, words function like tools in that they enlarge the bodily space of action thus modifying our sense of body. To support our proposal, we review the relevant literature on tool-use and on words as tools and report recent evidence indicating that word use leads to an extension of space close to the body. In addition, we outline a model of the neural processes that may underpin bodily space extension via word use and may reflect possible effects on cognition of the use of words as external means. We also discuss how reconciling the two perspectives can help to overcome the limitations they encounter if considered independently.

Both evolutionary and developmental research indicate that humans are adapted to respecting property rights, independently (and possibly orthogonally) to considerations of fairness. We offer evidence from psychological experiments suggesting that enforcing one’s rights and respecting others’ possessions is a basic cognitive mechanism, automatically activated and grounded in humans’ sensory-motor system. This may entail an independent motivation that is more profound than considerations of fairness and impartiality.

In this study we investigated whether the kind of action (i.e. manipulation vs. function) elicited by a visually presented object is modulated by its location in space, that is, its being within or outside the perceivers‟ reach-ability. Second, we investigated whether reach-ability mainly relies on the actual motor potentialities of individuals rather than their cognitive estimates of motor possibilities. Results showed that the activation of the potential actions to perform with objects is modulated by object accessibility. They also showed that accessibility is exclusively linked to the actual rather than the estimated reaching ability of the perceiver. The framework emerging from our results suggests that our cognitive capabilities are built online, via the current information in an implicit way that emerges in behavior, and are not necessarily reflected in explicit estimates or conscious representations. We believe this has interesting implications for embodied cognition theories, as it helps us to better qualify the notion of objects and of body/embodiment.

Questo lavoro, dopo un’iniziale presentazione della prospettiva “embodied” e la definizione di alcune nozioni cruciali – quella di affordance e quella di si-mulazione –, compie una breve rassegna di alcuni studi sul linguaggio, il cui obiettivo è quello di fornire prove a favore dell’idea che il linguaggio è “embodied” e si fonda sul sistema sensori-motorio.

One of the main challenges of embodied theories is accounting for meanings of abstract words. The most common explanation is that abstract words, like concrete ones, are grounded in perception and action systems. According to other explanations, abstract words, differently from concrete ones, would activate situations and introspection; alternatively, they would be represented through metaphoric mapping. However, evidence provided so far pertains to specific domains. To be able to account for abstract words in their variety we argue it is necessary to take into account not only the fact that language is grounded in the sensorimotor system, but also that language represents a linguistic-social experience. To study abstractness as a continuum we combined a concrete (C) verb with both a concrete and an abstract (A) noun; and an abstract verb with the same nouns previously used (grasp vs. describe a flower vs. a concept). To disambiguate between the semantic meaning and the grammatical class of the words, we focused on two syntactically different languages: German and Italian. Compatible combinations (CC, AA) were processed faster than mixed ones (CA, AC). This is in line with the idea that abstract and concrete words are processed preferentially in parallel systems - abstract in the language system and concrete more in the motor system, thus costs of processing within one system are the lowest. This parallel processing takes place most probably within different anatomically predefined routes. With mixed combinations, when the concrete word preceded the abstract one (CA), participants were faster, regardless of the grammatical class and the spoken language. This is probably due to the peculiar mode of acquisition of abstract words, as they are acquired more linguistically than perceptually. Results confirm embodied theories which assign a crucial role to both perception-action and linguistic experience for abstract words.

Background: The Meeting Centres Support Programme (MCSP) offers a combined approach to providing practical, emotional and social support to people living with mild to moderately severe dementia and their family carers in the community. Methods: A mixed methods explanatory design was used. The evaluation took place within the framework of the international Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) – MEETINGDEM study in nine Meeting Centres in Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. Eighty-seven people with dementia and 81 family carers completed a user evaluation survey after three months and 83 people with dementia and 84 carers after 6 months of participation in MCSP. Thirty-two people with dementia and 30 carers took part in focus groups after nine months. Results: The percentage of people with dementia who were very satisfied with the programme increased significantly over time (p = 0.05). The majority of carers reported that they felt less burdened after three months of participation in MCSP (48.1% much less; 35.4% a little less). After six months, this percentage increased significantly to 91% (p = 0.04, 57.7% much less; 33.3% little less). Focus group analysis showed that people with dementia and carers in all countries/centres improved their ability to maintain emotional balance. Conclusions: The MCSP is highly appreciated by people with dementia and carers in all countries and it confirms the results of previous research into MCSP in the Netherlands. Our findings indicate that MCSP is a model that can help its users to increase their capacity to deal with the challenges caused by dementia and can promote emotional balance.

Objectives: This is the first study to focus on the role and impact of a psychosocial intervention, the Meeting Centre Support Programme (MCSP), for people living with dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) on the experience of stigmatisation across three different European countries. Method: A pre/post-test control group study design compared outcomes for 114 people with dementia (n=74) and MCI (n=40) in Italy, Poland and the UK who received either the MCSP or usual care (UC). The ‘Stigma Impact Scale, neurological disease’ (SIS) was administered at two points in time, 6 months apart. The Global Deterioration Scale (GDS) was used to assess the level of cognitive impairment. Results: Although statistical analysis did not show any significant differences between MCSP and UC at pre/post-test for the 3 countries combined, there were significant results for individual countries. In Italy, the level of SIS was significantly lower (p=0.02) in the MCSP group following the intervention. The level of Social Isolation increased significantly (p=0.05) in the UC group at follow-up in Poland. The level of Social Rejection was significantly higher (p=0.03) over time for UK participants receiving MCSP compared to UC. Conclusion: The experience of stigma by people living with dementia and MCI is complex and there may be different country specific contexts and mechanisms. The results do not enable us to confirm or disconfirm the impact of a social support programme, such as MCSP, on this experience. Difficulties in directly measuring the level of stigma in this group also requires further research.

Enactive and embodied approaches to cognition are becoming increasingly interested in the affective dimension of human experience. Consistently, this issue has been addressed in empirical research, which is paying growing attention to the affective quality of social contexts by addressing motor simulations, joint actions, emotional disorders, and body psychotherapy. Still, while in the relationship between two or more agents the involvement of the affective variable, even when uninvestigated, is intrinsically evoked, in the case of the agent-object relationship the recognition of such engagement requires more specific care. In laboratory-based studies, when dealing with an object and an observer, the practical opportunities that she is able to perceive and use have been mainly operationalized referring to visual manipulable properties of the object, as shape and orientation, associated with its canonical use. Progressively empirical research introduced, and manipulated, also the physical context, and the required responses, distinguishing between functional and volumetric gestures. Are these ‘affordances’? Strictly speaking no, as these accounts clash with direct perception, but they are undoubtedly elegant approaches suitable for outlining answers (also) to most questions of ecological psychology. In light of the heated debate on affordances between philosophers and cognitive scientists, we propose to draw upon literature in both fields as our aim is twofold. (1) Exploring the great absentee of empirical investigations conducted so far: the affective dimension of perception-action coupling of our relationship with the physical context. To this end a clarification of the philosophical concept of ‘affective affordance’ would be essential. (2) Specifying some criteria of definition for this construct and suggesting an analysis of AAs in its application to the individual human agent’s practice – for our proposal to be not only theoretical, but suitable for experimental investigation, promoting a constructive dialogue between philosophy and empirical psychology.

The embodied approach to cognition consists in a range of theoretical proposals sharing the idea that our concepts are constitutively shaped by the physical and social constraints of our body and environment. Still far from a mutually enriching interplay, in recent years embodied and psychoanalytic approaches are converging on similar constructs, as the ones of intersubjectivity, bodily self and affective quality of verbal communication. Some efforts to cope with the sentient subject were already present in classical cognitivism: having expunged desires and conflicts from the cognitive harmony, bodily emotions re-emerged but only as a noisy dynamic friction. In contrast, the new, neural, embodied cognitive science with its focus on bodily effects/affects has enabled a dialogue between neuro-cognitive perspectives and clinic-psychological ones, through shared conceptual frameworks. I will address crucial issues that should be faced on this reconciling path. With reference to two kinds of contemporary addictions - Internet Addiction Disorder and Eating Disorders - I will introduce a possible therapeutic approach that is built upon the core role of the acting-sentient Bodily Self in a dynamic-social and affective environment. In the Psychoanalytic Psychodrama the spontaneous reenactment of a past (socially and physically constrained) experience is actualized by means of the other, the Auxiliary Ego. This allows homeostatic and social-emotional affects, i.e. drives and instincts, to be re-experienced by the agent, the Protagonist, in a safe scenario. The director-psychoanalyst smoothly leads back this simulation to the motivated, and constrained, early proximal embodied interactions with the significant others, and to the related instinctual conflicting aims. The psychoanalytic reframing of the classical psychodrama does not merely exploit its original cathartic function, rather stands out for exploring the interpersonal constitution of the self, through an actual “re-somatization” of the psychoanalytic therapy. Unspoken/unspeakable feelings pop up on stage: the strength of this treatment mainly rests on reestablishing the priority of the embodied Self over the narrative Self. By pointing to the possible conflicts between these two selves, this method can broaden the embodied cognition perspective. The psychodramatic approach will be briefly discussed in light of connectionist models, to finally address linguistic and methodological pivotal issues.

The aim of this study was to explore the neural correlates of the automatic activation of gender stereotypes by using the masked and unmasked priming technique. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants were presented with an Italian third-person singular pronoun (lui or lei) that were preceded by either a grammatically-marked (e.g., passeggeraFEM, pensionatoMASC) or stereotypically-associated (e.g., insegnanteFEM, conducenteMASC) role noun. Participants were required to judge the grammatical gender of the personal pronoun ignoring the preceding word. This word was presented in a masked or unmasked way. The results revealed slower reaction times and larger N400, in both the masked and unmasked conditions, when the pronouns were preceded by gender-incongruent than gender-congruent grammatical and stereotypical primes. A P300 effect also emerged in both masked and unmasked conditions for the grammatical gender mismatch between the antecedent and the pronoun. These results provide evidence that gender stereotypes can strongly influence our behavior even under unconscious conditions.

Background:In the MEETINGDEM project, the Meeting Centers Support Program (MCSP) was adaptively implemented and evaluated in three European countries: Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom. The aim of this study was to investigate overall and country-specific facilitators and barriers to the implementation of MCSP in these European countries.Methods:A qualitative multiple case study design was used. Based on the theoretical model of adaptive implementation, a checklist was composed of potential facilitators and barriers to the implementation of MCSP. This checklist was administered among stakeholders involved in the implementation of MCSP to trace the experienced facilitators and barriers. Twenty-eight checklists were completed.Results:Main similarities between countries were related to the presence of suitable staff, management, and a project manager, and the fact that the MCSP is attuned to needs and wishes of people with dementia and informal caregivers. Main differences between countries were related to: communication with potential referrers, setting up an inter-organizational collaboration network, receiving support of national organizations, having clear discharge criteria for the MCSP and continuous PR in the region.Conclusion:The results of this study provide insight into generic and country specific factors that can influence the implementation of MCSP in different European countries. This study informs further implementation and dissemination of MCSP in Europe and may also serve as an example for the dissemination and implementation of other effective psychosocial support interventions for people with dementia and their informal caregivers across and beyond Europe.

Religion is commonly defined as a set of rules, developed as part of a culture. Here we provide evidence that practice in following these rules systematically changes the way people attend to visual stimuli, as indicated by the individual sizes of the global precedence effect (better performance to global than to local features). We show that this effect is significantly reduced in Calvinism, a religion emphasizing individual responsibility, and increased in Catholicism and Judaism, religions emphasizing social solidarity. We also show that this effect is long-lasting (still affecting baptized atheists) and that its size systematically varies as a function of the amount and strictness of religious practices. These findings suggest that religious practice induces particular cognitive-control styles that induce chronic, directional biases in the control of visual attention.

While affordances have been intensively studied, the mechanisms according to how their activation is modulated by context are poorly understood. We investigated how the Agent[U+05F3]s reach-to-grasp movement towards a target-object (e.g. a can) is influenced by the other[U+05F3]s interaction with a second object (manipulative/functional) and by his/her eye-gaze communication. To manipulate physical context we showed participants two objects that could be linked by a spatial relation (e.g. can-knife, typically found in the same context), or by different functional relations. The functional relations could imply an action to perform with another person (functional-cooperative: e.g. can-glass), or on our own (functional-individual: e.g. can-straw). When objects were not related (e.g. can-toothbrush) participants had to refrain from responding. In order to respond, in the giving condition participants had to move the target object towards the other person, in the getting condition towards their own body.When participants (Agents) performed a reach-to-grasp movement to give the target object, in presence of eye-gaze communication they reached the wrist[U+05F3]s acceleration peak faster if the Other previously interacted with the second object in accordance with its conventional use. Consistently participants reached faster the MFA when the objects were related by a functional-individual than a functional-cooperative relation. The Agent[U+05F3]s getting response strongly affected the grasping component of the movement: in case of eye-gaze sharing, MFA was greater when the other previously performed a manipulative than a functional grip. Results reveal that humans have developed a sophisticated capability in detecting information from hand posture and eye-gaze, which are informative as to the Agent[U+05F3]s intention. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

none 5 si Evidence suggests that religious systems have specific effects on attentional and action control processes. The present study investigated whether religions also modulate choices that involve higher-order knowledge and the delay of gratification in particular. We tested Dutch Calvinists, Italian Catholics, and Atheists from both countries/cultures using an intertemporal choice task where participants could choose between a small immediate and a larger delayed monetary reward. Based on the Calvinist theory of predestination and the Catholic concept of a cycle of sin-confession-expiation, we predicted a reduced delay tolerance, i.e. higher discount rate (DR), for Italian Catholics than for Dutch Calvinists, and intermediate rates for the two atheist groups. Analyses of discount rates support our hypotheses. We also found a magnitude effect on temporal discounting and faster responses for large than for small rewards across religions and countries/cultures. We conclude that temporal discounting is specifically modulated by religious upbringing rather than by generic cultural differences. Paglieri F.; Borghi A.M.; Colzato L.S.; Hommel B.; Scorolli C. Paglieri F.; Borghi A.M.; Colzato L.S.; Hommel B.; Scorolli C.

none 3 no We investigated how the reach-to-grasp movement is influenced by the presence of another person (friend or non-friend), who was either invisible (behind) or located in different positions with respect to an object and to the Agent, and by the perspective conveyed by linguistic pronouns (“I”, “You”). The interaction between Social Relationship and Relative Position influenced the latency of both maximal fingers aperture and velocity peak, showing shorter latencies in presence of a non-friend than in presence of a friend. However, whereas the relative position of a non-friend did not affect the kinematics of the movement, the position of a friend mattered: latencies were significantly shorter with friends only in positions allowing them to easily reach for the object. Finally the investigation of the overall reaching movement time showed an interaction between the Speaker and the Pronoun: participants reached the object more quickly when the Other spoke, particularly if she used the “I” pronoun. This suggests that speaking, and particularly using the “I” pronoun, evokes a potential action. Implications of the results for embodied cognition are discussed. Gianelli C.; Scorolli C.; Borghi A.M. Gianelli C.; Scorolli C.; Borghi A.M.

Frontiers in human neuroscience 7, 125 (2013). doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00125, Published by Frontiers Research Foundation, Lausanne

An important challenge of embodied theories is to explain the comprehension of abstract sentences. The aim of the present study was to scrutinize the role of the motor cortex in this process. We developed a new paradigm to study the abstract-concrete dimension by combining concrete (i.e., action-related) and abstract (i.e., non-action-related) verbs with nouns of graspable and non-graspable objects. Using these verb-noun combinations we performed a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) on the left primary motor cortex while participants performed a sentence sensibility task. Single-TMS pulses were delivered 250ms after verb or noun presentation in each of four combinations of abstract and concrete verbs and nouns. To evaluate cortico-spinal excitability we registered the electromyographic activity of the right first dorsal interosseous muscle. As to verb-noun integration, analysis of motor evoked potentials (MEPs) after TMS pulse during noun presentation revealed greater peak-to-peak amplitude in phrases containing abstract rather than concrete verbs. Response times were also collected and showed that compatible (Concrete-Concrete and Abstract-Abstract) combinations were processed faster than mixed ones; moreover in combinations containing concrete verbs, participants were faster when the pulse was delivered on the first word (verb) than on the second one (noun). Results support previous findings showing early activation of hand-related areas after concrete verbs processing. The prolonged or delayed activation of the same areas by abstract verbs will be discussed in the framework of recent embodied theories based on multiple types of representation, particularly theories emphasizing the role of different acquisition mechanisms for concrete and abstract words (Borghi and Cimatti, 2009,2012).

In the last decade some scholars in the cognitive sciences opposed the idea of a disembodied Cartesian mind, arguing that the mind is embedded in our perceptual and motor system (e.g. BARSALOU, 1999; GLENBERG, 1997, 2010; LAKOFF, 1987). In this view, perception and action are directly linked and mutually influenced. Embodied-situated theories of cognition claim that objects are represented in terms of perceptual symbols (BARSALOU, 1999). As grounded on our actual interactions with the external world, perceptual symbols are dynamic, changeable and multimodal (PECHER, ZEELENBERG, & BARSALOU, 2003): conceptual information is distributed over modality specific domains (BARSALOU, SIMMONS, BARBEY, & WILSON, 2003; GALLESE & LAKOFF, 2005; MARTIN, WIGGS, UNGERLEIDER, & HAXBY, 1996). The multimodality of object concepts and the centrality of action information in their construction is demonstrated in a variety of experiments showing that visual stimuli activate motor information (see SMITH, 2005). According to the embodied-situated theories, words mediating concepts also enhance the neural pathways involved in perceiving objects and interacting with them. Nowadays strong empirical evidence from fields ranging from psychology to neuroscience and cognitive linguistics (see BERGEN, 2005; GIBBS, 2003; PECHER & ZWAAN, 2005) provides support for the view that language comprehension results in embodied representations (GALLESE & GOLDMAN, 1998; ZWAAN, 2004; GLENBERG, & KASCHAK, 2002). Crucially much recent evidence suggests that the mental simulation we run is rather specific, as sensitive to differences pertaining intrinsic object properties – as shape, size, color – (e.g. ZWAAN, STANFIELD & YAXLEY, 2002; GLOVER & DIXON, 2002) as well as extrinsic ones – as orientation – (e.g. STANFIELD & ZWAAN, 2001). Moreover this simulation is quite detailed as actions seem to be represented and encoded both at a proximal and at distal level (see HOMMEL, MÜSSELER, ASCHERSLEBEN, & PRINZ, 2001), as shown by studies manipulating the effector the verbs refers to – i.e. hands, foot, mouth – (PULVERMÜLLER, HÄRLE & HUMMEL, 2001; SCOROLLI & BORGHI, 2007; BUCCINO, RIGGIO, MELLI, BINKOFSKI, GALLESE, & RIZZOLATTI, 2005), as well as the final goal expressed by the sentence (BORGHI & SCOROLLI, 2009). The empirical studies (for a review see SCOROLLI & BORGHI, 2008) show that to understand language we recruit the same perceptual, motor and emotional systems used to interact with objects to perform action. Nevertheless the emphasis on words and their referents led embodied theories on language understanding to neglect the fact that being immersed in a linguistic context is a sensori-motor and social experience. This experience can modulate the way in which we represent words’ meanings. The aim of this special issue of the Italian Journal of Philosophy of Language (Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, RIFL) is to investigate language grounding from different perspectives, addressing new challenges, and providing insights into different problems.

The body, as the subject or the object of our experience, mediates all our interactions with the world. In contrast with traditional views, recent studies have shown that our sense of body is plastic and can be modified. In this perspective, a number of psychological and neuroscientific studies have demonstrated that, when humans and monkeys use an instrument to reach a target-object, an extension of their peri-personal space occurs. This extension effect has been demonstrated with monkeys and humans, with neglect patients and with controls, and with a variety of paradigms. In the last years, both neuroscientists (e.g. Farne’ et al., 2005) and philosophers (e.g., Clark, 2008) have proposed interesting parallels between tool-use and language. In this paper we intend to propose that words, similarly to tools, enlarge our space of action and modify the sense of our body. We will ground our proposal and discuss it also in light of recent evidence, obtained in our lab with kinematics and other behavioural studies, that shows that words use leads to an extension of our peri-personal space.

The mental representation of one’s own body does not necessarily correspond to the physical body. For instance, a dissociation between perceived and actual reach‐ability has been shown, that is, individuals perceive that they can reach objects that are out of grasp. We presented participants with 3D pictures of objects located at four different distances, namely near‐reaching space, actual‐reaching space, perceived‐reaching space and non‐reaching space. Immediately after they were presented with function, manipulation, observation or pointing verbs and were required to judge if the verb was compatible with the object. Participants were faster with function and manipulation verbs than with observation and pointing verbs. Strikingly, with both function and manipulation verbs participants were faster when objects were presented in actual than the perceived reaching space. These findings suggest that our knowledge of the world is implicitly built online through behaviour, and is not necessarily reflected in explicit estimates or conscious representations.

In the present study, we investigated, using language, which motor information is automatically activated by observing 3-D objects (i.e., manipulation vs. function) and whether this information is modulated by the objects' location in space. Participants were shown 3-D pictures of objects located in peripersonal versus extrapersonal space. Immediately after, they were presented with function, manipulation, or observation verbs (e.g., "to drink," "to grasp," "to look at") and were required to judge whether the verb was compatible with the presented object. We found that participants were slower with observation verbs than with manipulation and function verbs. With both function and manipulation verbs, participants were faster when objects were presented in reachable space. Interestingly, the fastest response times were recorded when participants read function verbs while objects were presented in the accessible space. Results suggest that artifacts are first conceived in terms of affordances linked to manipulation and use, and that affordances are differently activated, depending on context.

Previous findings suggest that religion has a specific impact on attentional processes. Here we show that religion also affects action control. Experiment 1 compared Dutch Calvinists and Dutch atheists, matched for age, sex, intelligence, education, and cultural and socioeconomic background, and Experiment 2 compared Italian Catholics with matched Italian seculars. As expected, Calvinists showed a smaller and Catholics a larger Simon effect than nonbelievers, while performance of the groups was comparable in the Stop-Signal task. This pattern suggests that religions emphasizing individualism or collectivism affects action control in specific ways, presumably by inducing chronic biases towards a more "exclusive" or "inclusive" style of decision-making. Interestingly, there was no evidence that religious practice affects inhibitory skills. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Four experiments (E1–E2–E3–E4) investigated whether different acquisition modalities lead to the emergence of differences typically found between concrete and abstract words, as argued by the words as tools (WAT) proposal. To mimic the acquisition of concrete and abstract concepts, participants either manipulated novel objects or observed groups of objects interacting in novel ways (Training 1). In TEST 1 participants decided whether two elements belonged to the same category. Later they read the category labels (Training 2); labels could be accompanied by an explanation of their meaning. Then participants observed previously seen exemplars and other elements, and were asked which of them could be named with a given label (TEST 2). Across the experiments, it was more difficult to form abstract than concrete categories (TEST 1); even when adding labels, abstract words remained more difficult than concrete words (TEST 2). TEST 3 differed across the experiments. In E1 participants performed a feature production task. Crucially, the associations produced with the novel words reflected the pattern evoked by existing concrete and abstract words, as the first evoked more perceptual properties. In E2–E3–E4, TEST 3 consisted of a color verification task with manual/verbal (keyboard–microphone) responses. Results showed the microphone use to have an advantage over keyboard use for abstract words, especially in the explanation condition. This supports WAT: due to their acquisition modality, concrete words evoke more manual information; abstract words elicit more verbal information. This advantage was not present when linguistic information contrasted with perceptual one. Implications for theories and computational models of language grounding are discussed.

This work starts from reviewing anatomical and neuro-physiological studies conducted on the monkey brain. Compelling evidence demonstrates the presence of neurons encoding different properties of the stimuli, i.e. motor neurons that are activated also by visual stimulation. These neurons are located in the ventral part of the monkey premotor cortex. Also in human brain there is an area that seems to be endowed with analogue functional properties: interestingly this area partially corresponds to the Broca’s area. The coexistence of motor and sensory properties at the level of neuronal structure suggests that motor system not only executes overt actions but also represents them internally. Interestingly this motor resonance seems to be the neural underpinning of the idea of simulation emerged in cognitive sciences: our concepts consist in the re-enactment of the same neural activation pattern running when we perceive their referents or when we interact with them. Consistently, perception and action cannot be conceived as secondary processes of our cognitive system. In this chapter I illustrate their bi-directional relationship by discussing two empirical studies in which authors used a linguistic task in addition to a motor and a perceptual one. If language understanding activates the motor system it should affect action production as well as action perception. The symmetrical modulation we found suggests the presence of analogous mechanisms underlying motor and perceptual resonance.

According to theories referring to embodied and grounded cognition (Barsalou, 2008), language comprehension encompasses an embodied simulation of actions. The neural underpinnings of this simulation could be found in wide neural circuits that involve canonical and mirror neurons (Rizzolatti et al., 1996). In keeping with this view, we review behavioural and kinematic studies conducted in our lab which help characterize the relationship existing between language and the motor system. Overall, our results reveal that the simulation evoked during sentence comprehension is fine-grained, primarily in its sensitivity to the different effectors we employ to perform actions. In addition, they suggest that linguistic comprehension also relies on the representation of actions in terms of goals and of the chains of motor acts necessary to accomplish them. Finally, they indicate that these goals are modulated by both the object features the sentence refers to as well as by social aspects such as the characteristics of the agents implied by sentences. We will discuss the implications of these studies for embodied robotics.

Recenti proposte (Barsalou et al, 2008; Borghi&Cimatti 2009) suggeriscono che le parole attivano molteplici tipi di rappresentazioni: le parole astratte attiverebbero primariamente aree linguistiche, le parole concrete le aree sensori-motorie. Scopo del lavoro è verificare questa ipotesi, esplorando il ruolo della corteccia motoria primaria (M1) durante la comprensione di frasi concrete e astratte. I risultati indicano che l’elaborazione del verbo modula il sistema motorio. Nel caso di verbi concreti la modulazione è precoce. Nel caso di verbi astratti si registra un’attivazione ritardata, che merita di essere ulteriormente indagata per capire se si tratta di un effetto collaterale generato da un’attivazione primaria di aree linguistiche.

In the present chapter we report experiments on the relationships between visual objects and action and between words and actions. Results show that seeing an object activates motor information and that language is also grounded in perceptual and motor systems. They are discussed within the framework of embodied cognitive science. We argue that models able to reproduce the experiments should be embodied organisms, whose brain is simulated with neural networks and whose body is as similar as possible to humans’ body. We also claim that embodied models are badly needed in cognitive psychology, as they could help to solve some open issues. Finally, we discuss potential implications of the use of embodied models for embodied theories of cognition.

none 3 Language comprehension requires a simulation process that taps perception and action systems. How speciWc is this simulation? To address this question, participants listened to sentences referring to the lifting of light or heavy objects (e.g., pillow or chest, respectively). Then they lifted one of two boxes that were visually identical, but one was light and the other heavy. We focused on the kinematics of the initial lift (rather than reaching) because it is mostly shaped by proprioceptive features derived from weight that cannot be visually determined. Participants were slower when the weight suggested by the sentence and the weight of the box corresponded. This eVect indicates that language can activate a simulation which is sensitive to intrinsic properties such as weight. Scorolli C.; Borghi A.M.; Glenberg A.M. Scorolli C.; Borghi A.M.; Glenberg A.M.

In five experiments participants were presented with pairs of nouns and verbs. They were asked to decide whether the combinations made sense or not. Half of the participants responded “yes” with the dominant hand, half with the left hand. When pairs referred to manual and mouth actions, participants responded faster with the dominant than with the left hand with sensible sentences. When pairs referred to manual and foot actions the result was opposite. Results suggest that language processing activates an action simulation that is sensitive both to the effector involved and to the goal expressed by the sentence.

In this work I address the study of language comprehension in an “embodied” framework. Firstly I show behavioral evidence supporting the idea that language modulates the motor system in a specific way, both at a proximal level (sensibility to the effectors) and at the distal level (sensibility to the goal of the action in which the single motor acts are inserted). I will present two studies in which the method is basically the same: we manipulated the linguistic stimuli (the kind of sentence: hand action vs. foot action vs. mouth action) and the effector by which participants had to respond (hand vs. foot vs. mouth; dominant hand vs. non-dominant hand). Response times analyses showed a specific modulation depending on the kind of sentence: participants were facilitated in the task execution (sentence sensibility judgment) when the effector they had to use to respond was the same to which the sentences referred. Namely, during language comprehension a pre-activation of the motor system seems to take place. This activation is analogous (even if less intense) to the one detectable when we practically execute the action described by the sentence. Beyond this effector specific modulation, we also found an effect of the goal suggested by the sentence. That is, the hand effector was pre-activated not only by hand-action-related sentences, but also by sentences describing mouth actions, consistently with the fact that to execute an action on an object with the mouth we firstly have to bring it to the mouth with the hand. After reviewing the evidence on simulation specificity directly referring to the body (for instance, the kind of the effector activated by the language), I focus on the specific properties of the object to which the words refer, particularly on the weight. In this case the hypothesis to test was if both lifting movement perception and lifting movement execution are modulated by language comprehension. We used behavioral and kinematics methods, and we manipulated the linguistic stimuli (the kind of sentence: the lifting of heavy objects vs. the lifting of light objects). To study the movement perception we measured the correlations between the weight of the objects lifted by an actor (heavy objects vs. light objects) and the esteems provided by the participants. To study the movement execution we measured kinematics parameters variance (velocity, acceleration, time to the first peak of velocity) during the actual lifting of objects (heavy objects vs. light objects). Both kinds of measures revealed that language had a specific effect on the motor system, both at a perceptive and at a motoric level. Finally, I address the issue of the abstract words. Different studies in the “embodied” framework tried to explain the meaning of abstract words The limit of these works is that they account only for subsets of phenomena, so results are difficult to generalize. We tried to circumvent this problem by contrasting transitive verbs (abstract and concrete) and nouns (abstract and concrete) in different combinations. The behavioral study was conducted both with German and Italian participants, as the two languages are syntactically different. We found that response times were faster for both the compatible pairs (concrete verb + concrete noun; abstract verb + abstract noun) than for the mixed ones. Interestingly, for the mixed combinations analyses showed a modulation due to the specific language (German vs. Italian): when the concrete word precedes the abstract one responses were faster, regardless of the word grammatical class. Results are discussed in the framework of current views on abstract words. They highlight the important role of developmental and social aspects of language use, and confirm theories assigning a crucial role to both sensorimotor and linguistic experience for abstract words.